


Nine Months

by RosiePaw



Category: November (Kabi)
Genre: M/M, Mpreg, November 'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-17
Updated: 2011-09-17
Packaged: 2017-10-23 20:07:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/254387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosiePaw/pseuds/RosiePaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This work is a sequel to Kabi's <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/216342/chapters/325280"><i>Cadet Murphy</i></a>.  You may find that it makes more sense if you've read that story first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nine Months

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Cadet Murphy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/216342) by [Kabi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kabi/pseuds/Kabi). 



> Many thanks to [Kabi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kabi/pseuds/Kabi) for creating the [_November_](http://archiveofourown.org/series/7979) 'verse, for permission to post this story and for her kind comments and suggestions.

The latest winter storm rattled against the roof of the big house.  Calvin Murphy remembered the first few snowfalls.  There’d been snowball fights, and hot, spiced cider afterwards.  _Hot_ cider in a _warm_ house, with no one rationing a meagre and ever-dwindling wood supply against the number of winter days still to come.  Cal had been surprised at how much fun winter could be when you could take a warm house for granted.

After two-going-on-three months of winter, however, the fun was gone.  The too-short days still seemed to drag.  Everyone was short-tempered, suffering from cabin fever.  There were fewer missions, but the weather added its own share of danger and fatigue to those that did take place.

Grandfather’s presence contributed to the tension in the household.  The old man watched everything, all the time, apparently even when he wasn’t looking.  Tiger hypothesized a network of hidden cameras, although his failure to find any wasn’t for lack of trying.

Grandfather was unfailingly courteous, even kind, towards the carriers, but his implied power to upset the balance of their home made them all uncomfortable.  Tiger in particular fretted over his effect on Miljan.  Everyone knew that the death of Miljan’s brother had not been resolved.

Then there was the question of pregnancy.  Grandfather doted on Ami and insisted that “the little mother” should have every comfort, but his compliments on Ami’s pregnancy inevitably led to further comments on Tiger’s and Cal’s notable lack of signs of the same.

The carriers figured that by now the old man pretty much _had_ to have found out about the contraceptive shots, but he never mentioned them.  Grandfather just made _remarks_ and then _more_ remarks, and he probably would have _kept_ making remarks except that usually by then Ami would have started fussing.  Ami’s feet hurt and he needed someone to rub them.  His back hurt and he needed another cushion behind it – no wait, forget the cushion, now he needed someone to help him stand up because he needed to go pee (again) and someone should come with him in case he got leg cramps on the way.

At first Cal thought Ami was just fussing because he liked being the centre of attention.  Cal continued to think that right up until the day he happened to be watching Ami’s face as Grandfather turned to order Drag to get a hot water bottle for his wife.  The moment Grandfather turned away, Ami stopped smiling, looked Cal’s way and gave a little nod.  His usual sweet smile was back in place by the time Grandfather turned back.

Cal never spoke about this moment, not to Ami or Tiger or anyone else.  Certainly not to Bos.

***

Things with Bos were... better.  Cal hadn’t dared suggest that they read _The First Month of Marriage_ together, but he’d read it himself.  Some of it was useful.  Most of the advice centred around talking to each other.  So Cal tried, at least in bed.  He tried to speak up, to let Bos know what hurt, what was frightening.  Sometimes what was good.  Bos seemed to listen but didn’t talk a lot in return.  Mostly he seemed pleased just by having Cal there and willing.

“It only makes sense,” said Tiger.  The carriers were hanging out together in Tiger’s and Miljan’s room, the warmest room upstairs because it abutted the kitchen chimney.  Supposedly, they were catching up on the mending – they’d brought a huge pile of clothes along, in case anyone checked on them.  But mostly Tiger and Cal were taking the occasional stitch as they gossiped, while Ami was poring over a book on pregnancy and childbirth, reading bits aloud now and then.

“I mean,” Tiger went on, “You’ve never been a wife before and he’s never been a husband before.  So how are you supposed to learn things if you don’t talk to each other?”

“Soldiers on patrol learn things by keeping their eyes open and their mouths shut,” Cal pointed out.

“Yeah, that’s how they learn things about the _enemy_.  Bos is your husband, not your enemy, right?”

Cal shrugged.  He wasn’t sure if Tiger was actually asking a question, and he wasn’t sure what the answer was either.

“The word ‘pain’,” Ami read, “does not describe truly labour.  Labour is not painful.  It is more like an intense energy that takes hold of every muscle in your body, pushing you to your limits of endurance. Instead of resisting this intensity, we need to learn to push into it and use it as our fuel.  The intensity provides all the energy and power we need to get through labour quickly and without complications.”

“Do not be afraid of the intensity.  Be yearning for it and thankful for it when it comes!  It will provide all the motivation you need to deliver your baby quickly, safely and beautifully.”

“Was that book written by the same people who wrote that your first time with your husband _might_ hurt?” Cal wanted to know.

“My first time with Miljan didn’t hurt at all,” protested Tiger.

“That’s only because you were distracted by your father trying to break the door down,” retorted Cal.

Ami started laughing, and Tiger went a bit red.  The story of Tiger and Miljan’s courtship and marriage – as told, of course, by Tiger himself – had become a sort of epic romance among the three carriers.  Cal found he liked knowing that things had been like that for _someone_ , even if the “someone” wasn’t him.  He and Bos weren’t in love, not the way Tiger and Miljan seemed to be.  But he was pretty sure Bos loved him, and him?  He’d come to like Bos well enough, he guessed.

 _He’s never been a husband before._

Tiger’s phrase came back to Cal later that night, as he lay cradled against Bos’ chest, listening to his husband’s breathing even out as Bos passed into sleep.  In their first week of married life, when they were still waiting for the contraceptive shot to take effect, Bos had pulled out and come on Cal, leaving Cal feeling as if he wanted to jump out of bed and wash himself.  Now Bos came inside Cal instead, which seemed like it ought to have felt more invasive but was actually neater and more comfortable.

Sleeping with Bos was – kind of nice, really.  The big man gave off heat like a well-laid hearth fire, and his bulk made Cal feel protected.

 _He’s never been a husband before._

Tiger was, what, five years younger than Cal himself?  He’d been five when the Plague came and remembered his mother mainly through his father’s stories about her.  Cal had been almost eleven when he lost his own mother, so he remembered her pretty well.

Bos was... older.  Older than Drag and Miljan, Cal knew that because he’d heard them joking about it one day.  Young enough that his hair was still thick and dark.  Younger than Uncle Red, Cal thought, but closer in age to Red than to Cal himself.  Forty, more or less.  So... late twenties when the Plague came.

Old enough to remember living in a world where women made up half the population.

Old enough to have been married.

***

Sometimes, when Cal couldn’t stand having even Tiger and Ami around anymore, he hid himself away with books, his own books or one of Bos’.  At least, one of the ones in English.  Some of Bos’ books were in what Cal assumed was Serbian, and some were in a completely different alphabet.

Bos owned a lot of books.  Cal had initially been surprised by this – and then somewhat ashamed of his surprise.  When he’d been in school and larger, stronger boys had teased him for his red hair, his weight and his love of books, it had helped to tell himself that he was smart and they were stupid, muscle-bound oafs.  But it would be a mistake to think Bos was stupid.  Miljan would never choose a stupid man as his chief guard.

Many of the books were about history, military and otherwise.  Cal liked the latter ones best.  There were also books of short stories and poetry, but he often felt as if these were going over his head.

Some of the poems he recognized as ones Bos had read to him when he was first captured.

 _I have been tangled there, more than once  
beside a thresher  
with a wild apple  
opened by sex and sudden  
and in the threshed straw remained  
an odour of semen and moon._

Cal read these poems and felt as if he were the stupid one.  Maybe he was just young.

He tried to be careful about returning the books to their shelves in the exact spaces where he had found them.  Either he was successful, or Bos chose not to say anything for reasons of his own.

***

In March, somewhat to his surprise, Cal got his second contraceptive shot from Bos.  After all of Grandfather’s talk, he’d pretty much resigned himself to the idea that he’d be getting pregnant sooner rather than later.  Bos never really discussed it with him.  He just produced the syringe one night.  Catching Cal’s startled look, he raised an eyebrow and asked, “Da?”

“Da,” was Cal’s fervent answer.  “Hvala!”

He checked with Tiger afterwards and sure enough, Miljan had given Tiger his shot two weeks before.

“But listen,” said Tiger, “When Bos decides not to give you any more shots, tell me and I’ll tell Miljan to stop mine – I mean, I won’t tell him _why_ , but I’ll tell him I’m ready and he won’t argue.  And that way we can be pregnant together, okay?”

It was a generous offer, especially coming from a boy not yet eighteen.

Of course he couldn’t mention either the shot or his deal with Tiger when he called his uncle a few days later.  Bos allowed him monthly calls, but never gave him privacy for them.  “You are my wife,” he said reprovingly when Cal tried asking, “What would you tell your uncle that I should not know?”

So there were lots of things he couldn’t tell his uncle, but he could tell him that he was all right and Bos was all right and Bos was treating him well.  And he could ask how things were on the farm.  The money, the tractor and the deed for the land Bos had offered as part of Cal’s bride price had been delivered a couple months back.  The heifers, however, had to wait until there was pasturage for them, Red Murphy not having known in advance to make provisions for winter feed.

But the pastures were greening up now, and the heifers had arrived.  Red figured that half of them were old enough to be bred right away, while the other half would do better if they waited a bit.  Like me, thought Cal, but he didn’t say that.  Instead he told Uncle Red a funny story about the men of the household coming back from a mission covered head to toe in black, sticky mud.

Cal wouldn’t see Red or his own brothers again until he was pregnant.  Red didn’t ask if there were any signs that might be soon.  Probably Red already guessed the answer.  If Cal _were_ pregnant, he’d’ve said so first thing, and he hadn’t.  Maybe that’s why Red had made a point of telling him about the heifers.

Eventually both conversations ended, the one they were having and the one they weren’t.  Cal handed the phone back to Bos, who traded a few polite remarks with Red.  It wasn’t so much, Cal thought, that Bos liked Red or cared if Red liked him.  Bos _respected_ Red as his wife’s senior kinsman.  He’d prefer to have Red’s respect for him as Cal’s husband in turn, although he’d do without if it wasn’t forthcoming.

Cal sometimes found himself thinking that by the time he got Bos figured out, he was going to qualify for a degree in Bos studies.

***

“Is Drag letting your family come for the birth?” Tiger asked Ami.  Tiger and Cal were scrubbing the kitchen.  Ami, who by now looked like a belly with legs and a head, sat by doing pretty much nothing except being pregnant.

Cal thought he’d rather scrub.

“It’s not Drag,” replied Ami.  “And no, they’re not coming.  They’ve never been here.”

Tiger looked nonplussed.   “Oh.  You were here before I was, so I thought maybe...”

Ami shook his head.

“But Drag lets you call them, right?”

“It’s not Drag,” Ami repeated gently.

Poor Tiger looked actively shocked.  Cal knew Tiger adored his own father and suspected, from things Tiger had said, that the man cared deeply for Tiger as well.  In some ways, Tiger was still quite naïve.

“I’m the runt of the litter,” explained Ami, “Four older brothers, all larger and stronger and more athletic.  My father... wasn’t too impressed with me.  When I was younger, he used to say I was too pretty for a boy and I’d probably turn out to be a fag.”

“Mom said he only said that because he was worried about me.  She said keep my mouth shut, be a good boy, things would turn out all right.  She said... when I got older, she would help me make sure things turned out all right.”

“Then the Plague came and Mom died and my father started drinking.  Well, drinking more.  Two of my brothers had already joined the army, and the other two did as well.  But when it was my turn, I flunked the entrance physicals, so I got put on a construction crew instead.  I kept my mouth shut and smiled a lot and did my work.  It was okay.  I did general labour awhile and then got assigned as a carpenter’s apprentice.  I almost made it to carpenter.”

“And then you Changed,” Tiger supplied.

“Yeah.  I tried to hide it – well, you guys can guess how well _that_ turned out.  The foreman noticed and shipped me off to a hospital.”

“Did he try to keep you for himself?” Tiger wanted to know.

“Nah, he was worried that other people might’ve noticed me too, that they might start asking questions as to where I went.  Not everyone’s in Special Forces with a general to cover their asses.  So he sent me to the hospital, right and proper.”

“When I got to the hospital, they let me call my father.  I could tell right away he’d been drinking.  He said he’d always said I was too pretty for a boy and I’d probably turn out to be a carrier.”

“But that’s _not_ what he’d ‘always said’!” Tiger protested.

“Tiger, let me give you some advice: never waste time arguing with a drunk.  What my father said was what he believed.  There was nothing I could say that was going to change his mind.  And anyway,” Ami smiled wryly , “he hung up on me.  I haven’t heard from him since.”

“And your brothers?”

“I don’t know what he told them.  When we were kids, if any of them spoke out for me, my father would lash out at that one.  After a while, they stopped trying.  And I stopped hoping they’d try.”  Ami shrugged.  Cal wondered how much pain the shrug was meant to hide.

“If you were in a hospital, how come you didn’t end up in an education centre after that?”

“Ah, well, this is where the happy ending starts.  The people in the hospital were telling me all about how they’d get me through the Change and then send me to a CEC, where I’d be taught all sorts of wonderful things about my new life as a carrier and where I’d live until – well, they didn’t exactly say ‘until someone decided to marry me and take me off their hands.’”

“Like a dog in a shelter,” Tiger muttered.

“So when I woke up one night and there was this man in scrubs with a cast on his ankle sitting in the chair next to my bed, I thought I was dreaming.”

“Drag,” said Tiger.

“Don’t spoil my story.  Big man, dark hair, older than me but not, you know, too old.  I didn’t know what to say, so I asked about his ankle.  And he started telling me about some mission he’d been on, but he had to keep his voice low because he _really_ wasn’t supposed to be there, plus he had this accent, it was pretty strong...”

“On purpose?” Calvin asked.  He’d noticed that Bos and Miljan did the same thing, adjusting the strength of their accents according to the impression they wanted to make.

Ami grinned.  “Yeah, maybe.  Because I kept leaning closer and closer and then kind of slipped and ended up halfway across his lap.  I remember thinking he had a nice laugh.  But then he said he heard someone coming and had to go, and he went.”

“The next night,” Ami paused for effect, “he came _back_.  This time he wanted to know more about me, so I told him about my family and the construction crew.  He _listened_.  And when I told him about the phone call with my father, he even looked angry, which was more than anyone else had.”

“Then he asked me if I knew yet when I was getting sent to a centre.  I said, the doctors said three more days.  And he grinned, all his teeth showing – nice, white teeth – and said the doctors said he’d be in five more days with his ankle, but maybe he was leaving before that.”

“He didn’t come back the next night, so I wondered if someone had caught him sneaking into my room.  But the night after _that_ , I was lying awake wondering if he’d come, and the power went out.  Then it came back on again, but at emergency levels, with the lights very dim.  I heard shots being fired, not right nearby, and then the door slammed open and two men came in, my guy with the cast and another one dressed all in black.  And my guy...”

“ _Drag,_ ” Tiger insisted.

“Drag,” Ami agreed, “asked me if I would come with him, because if not he had just made a lot of trouble for nothing.  The other guy said something in another language, I think he just wanted to grab me and run.  But Drag waited for me to answer.”

“And you said, yes,” said Tiger.

“Maybe not,” said Cal, “Not every story’s a romance.”

“I said, hell, yes.  Because no one had ever broken the rules like that for my sake.  And because my family didn’t want me and the foreman had handed me off to the hospital to hand off to the CEC to hand off to a husband.  I was tired of being handed off.  So I said yes and we all ran, well, Drag did this sort of run-hobble.  There was a black van waiting outside behind some bushes, and we piled into the back of it and someone slammed the door and then the passenger door slammed and the van took off.”

“We drove for quite a well, and then we pulled over for a break.  Drag was still wearing scrubs and I was wearing just a hospital sheath.  One of the other men gave us some clothes, and Drag took me aside to change.  Everything was too long on me, he helped me roll the cuffs up and I helped him get his pants over his cast.  Then we went back to the van.  Drag took me up to one of the men and introduced me and told me that Miljan was the one in charge.  And Miljan smiled and said he was very happy to meet me, and I tried to punch him in the face.”

Tiger spun around from the counter he was scrubbing, wide-eyed.

“Miljan blocked the punch and shoved me back towards Drag, so I tried to punch Drag and he grabbed my wrists.  I was kicking and screaming at him, how I was tired of people handing me off and I’d come with him because I thought he wanted me to keep and he was stuck with me and I wasn’t letting him hand me off to his boss.”

“Some of the men were laughing and that made me even angrier.  Finally my voice started running out.  I was exhausted and we were in the middle of nowhere and I was ready to cry.  And that’s when Miljan said,” here Ami dropped his voice a bit, imitating Miljan, “’Little one, we are not laughing at you.  We are laughing at Drag because he has explained things very clearly to us, but not at all clearly to his wife.’”

“And then Drag hugged me and then I _did_ cry.  That’s how I got married.  And now Drag and I are having a baby.  I smile for Granddad and talk sweet to him because it makes things better for Drag, that’s okay.  But if my father had the nerve to show up here, I’d steal Drag’s gun and shoot him myself.  And now,” said Ami with dignity, “I have to go pee again.”

***

Ami’s baby was born on April 17, almost a week later than expected.  The doctor said the delay wasn’t unusual in a first birth and neither was a long labour.

Listening to Ami yelling, Cal wondered if this particular labour was ever going to end.  It seemed as if Ami had been yelling forever.

“Seven hours,” muttered Tiger, crouched beside Cal.  “It’s been going on for _seven hours_!”

For awhile, Drag had been right in the bedroom at Ami’s side.  Miljan, Bos and the two other carriers had taken up positions in the room across the hall, while Grandfather chose to wait downstairs in the office with its comfortable chairs and a steady supply of tea from the kitchen.

The other men in the household came and went, looking anxious.  Every now and then the doctor would stick his head out the door and yell for more hot water or another blanket, and too many people would jump to get it at once.

As the hours went by, the doctor had kicked Drag out of the bedroom, claiming that his fussing and pacing were making things worse for Ami.  Drag looked pretty bad, pale and tense.  Cal wondered what Ami looked like.

Then someone had the bright idea that having the carriers present might cause them to become frightened of childbirth.  Which was completely _stupid_.

“We’ve been here all along!” argued Tiger.  “If we’re not scared by now, we’re never going to be!”

Cal thought this was less than honest, because he _was_ scared and he was pretty sure Tiger was too.  But he also figured that _not_ being able to hear what was going on would be even scarier, so he nodded and looked at Bos, thinking please, please, please.

It didn’t work.  They’d both been sent downstairs to the kitchen, with orders to maintain a supply of hot water and blankets even though the kitchen turned out to be full of men already doing just that.

“They’re really sending us away so we won’t see _them_ being scared,” declared Tiger, and Cal wasn’t sure Tiger was wrong.

They snuck out of the kitchen while no one was looking and made it down the hall into a closet directly underneath Ami and Drag’s bedroom.  There were enough boxes piled inside the closet to get them right up near the ceiling, so that’s where they ended up, crouching side by side, listening to the footsteps overhead.  And Ami yelling.

Cal wished they were back in the upstairs hall, where he’d been sitting next to Bos.  Bos was very large and steady and Cal had gotten used to having him close.  Cal thought he might be a little less scared if he had Bos close right now.

“My mother,” said Tiger fiercely, only to be interrupted by a particular loud howl from upstairs.  “My mother was little like me.  And she birthed me just _fine_ , she was _fine_.  Dad said that when she heard me yelling for the first time, she reached out her arms and he put me into them and she held me and looked at me and gave me my name.  So she was fine, well, up until the Plague killed her.  But it was definitely the Plague, and that was years later.  It wasn’t the birth, even though she was little.”

There wasn’t much light inside the closet, but Tiger sounded close to tears, trying to be defiant on top of it.  Which was Tiger all over.

“Ami’s going to be fine,” said Cal.  “Ever helped a cow birth a calf?  I have.”

Tiger sniffed.  Then said, after a moment: “Maybe you should tell Drag that.  Maybe he’ll let you help the doctor.”

Cal snorted.  “Yeah, right, Drag’s going to love hearing me compare his wife to a cow.”

It _was_ kind of funny, imagining Drag’s face.  And then Tiger said, “Moooooo,” and Cal started to laugh and Tiger started to laugh and _then_ they heard footsteps outside the closet door, so they both shut up and held their breaths until the footsteps went away.

Upstairs, Ami yelled again.

***

Ami’s son was born after 11 hours of labour and immediately proved himself to have a healthy set of lungs.  Healthy everything else, too, said the doctor as he handed the swaddled infant to Drag, who carried him tenderly back to an eager Ami.  An _amazingly_ eager Ami, Cal thought, considering all the yelling.

“He’s too large and too small both at the same time,” said Tiger, wrinkling his nose.

“Tiger,” warned Miljan.

“No, he is!  He’s a lot smaller than Ami’s belly was and he looks almost too small to be alive...”

“3.46 kilograms,” the doctor interrupted.  “A good size.”

“...But he also looks too large to have come out of, uh, you know.”

“Yes, Tiger, we all know and that is _enough_ ,” said Miljan firmly.  “Drag, congratulations.”  

“Congratulations, indeed,” came Grandfather’s voice from the doorway.  Cal watched as everyone in the room pulled back from the space between Grandfather and Drag, leaving an aisle.  Drag quickly retrieved the baby from Ami, approached the patriarch and presented his newborn son.

“Very fine, very healthy,” Grandfather approved.  “What is his name?”

“Javor.”

“Ah,” said Grandfather mildly.  Drag flushed.

Javor.  Maple tree.  Cal wondered if Drag was worried Grandfather would ask how he’d chosen the name.  The truth was Drag had indulgently given Ami a list of several acceptable names.  Javor was Ami’s choice.

But Grandfather nodded and bent down to kiss baby Javor’s forehead.  Then he approached the bed and kissed Ami’s hand, making the carrier blush, before he swept out of the room.

The sense of relief was immediate.  Ami reached out for the baby and Drag handed him back.  Miljan shook Drag’s hand, and then the other men wanted to do the same.  On the bed, baby Javor rooted at Ami’s swollen breasts and Ami looked happy.  Not just smiling, because Ami was almost always smiling.  Really, genuinely happy.

***

Grandfather left a couple of weeks after the birth, dressed as he had arrived in a dark wool suit and a crisp white shirt.  The household lined up to see him off in an eerie repeat of his arrival.

Cal’s hair was growing out.  Bos wouldn’t let him cut it.  Tiger’s hair was long enough to be pulled back in a stubby ponytail, and Ami had the beginnings of a braid, but Cal’s hair tickled where it brushed the back of his neck and flopped down over his eyes in front.  He fought not to fidget, but it was a close thing.

Grandfather, of course, missed nothing.  He paused in front of Cal as he passed by and brushed Cal’s fringe aside.  Cal and Bos both tensed, waiting for the coming reprimand.  Grandfather only commented, “Red hair,” shook his head slightly and then continued onwards.  The bastard.

At the door, Grandfather paused again for one final word.  “Miljan,” he said, “Try not to shoot any more family members.”

Miljan replied calmly, “Da, Deda,” but Cal saw how he gripped Tiger’s shoulder a little harder.

A black car with tinted windows took Grandfather away.

“Business,” shrugged Bos.  A mission, thought Cal.  A mission involving talk instead of guns, with words as deadly as bullets.

“Miljan says Grandfather doesn’t like the summer house,” Tiger confided.  “It’s old, it was built before the war, it’s all open spaces.  People lived in it year-round because back then they always had plenty of fuel.”

“Grandfather doesn’t like it because it’s old?”  This seemed like something of a contradiction.

“Because it’s too open.  Grandfather’s kind of... suspicious?”

More like paranoid, thought Calvin, and took a few more stitches in the shirt he was mending.

Ami looked up from where he was nursing Javor.  “So if he doesn’t like it, why didn’t he just tear it down and build one he liked?”

“Miljan says Grandmother liked it.”

They were all quiet for awhile after that.  Cal wasn’t sure which was harder – imagining Grandfather as a younger man, or imagining the woman he married and might have loved.

***

They moved to the summer house in late May, which meant that they spent most of that month sorting, packing and getting the winter house ready to be shut down.

“I spent all day yesterday scrubbing floors and then all night dreaming about scrubbing floors,” complained Tiger at breakfast one morning.

Miljan raised an eyebrow.  “Maybe I should give you other things to dream about?”

His tone was mild, but Tiger flushed and everyone else laughed, not unkindly.  Cal was glad Bos didn’t say things like that to him where others could hear.  He knew Tiger didn’t mind it, even liked it, but that was how Tiger and Miljan _were_.

What he and Bos were was something different.  Different from Tiger and Miljan, but also different from what they’d been in December.  Different – and still changing.

“Are we bringing all the books?” Cal asked Bos that evening as they got ready for bed.

“Not all.  I will choose some,” said Bos.  “And you should choose some.  You seem to like my books.”

 Cal looked at him quickly, but Bos was smiling.  “I have a clever wife.  You will give me clever children.”

***

The summer house higher up in the mountains was, as Tiger had described it, composed mainly of open, airy spaces.  The bedrooms and bathrooms were perhaps the only rooms with doors that actually closed.  Outside there was more space, extensive grounds with tall, well-grown trees and banks of rhododendrons inside the high stone walls.

Bos and Cal’s bedroom was on the second floor at the southwest corner of the house.  Bos left Cal there to unpack while he went off to some meeting Miljan had called.  Cal had never seen Bos wearing some of the clothes he found himself unpacking now.  They were summer clothes, and he’d been Bos’ wife less than half a year.  There would come a time when he would have gone through a full cycle, winter house to summer house and back.  Once he’d gotten through that first cycle, he’d know a little more about what to expect for all the years to come.

He wasn’t sure how it made him feel, thinking about all those years.

He lifted the last stack of clothes from the trunk he was unpacking, went to close it – and noticed a faint rectangular outline underneath the lining.  It wasn’t _hidden_ , exactly.  The lining had been designed to come away easily.  It was more like something had been slipped in and not hidden but simply forgotten.  Which meant that Bos wouldn’t be angry if he pulled it out to look at, right?

Yeah, sure.

He did it anyway.

A large envelope of yellowish paper, with writing on it in that other alphabet he couldn’t read.  Inside, sheets of paper, more writing.

And photographs.  Men – and women.  Children, girls as well as boys.  Cal hadn’t seen girls since his two sisters had died.

The people in the photos were wearing summer clothes.  They were smiling, laughing, some of them mugging for the camera.  It looked as if they were having a picnic, maybe an outdoor party.  Some of the men’s faces looked almost familiar, but it took Cal a few moments to pick out a younger Bos, a younger Drag, a couple of the other men he knew.  He didn’t spot Miljan or Grandfather.

Cal looked hard at the women, studying which men they stood with in different photos, how they stood in relation to those men.  In one photo, a young woman with dark blonde hair sat next to an older man.  Bos crouched on the man’s other side.  The two young people were smiling.  The older man looked as if he was trying to.

There was a photo of two older women, laughing.  Another showing Bos and a man about his own age, their arms around each other’s shoulders, both grinning like fools.  Cal thought the other man might be one of the guards.  Bos’ brother?  Close friend?  _Lover?_   Cal felt his face heat.  He hastily flipped to the next photo.

The blonde woman again, now with Drag, the guard and a dark-haired young woman.  Cal squinted, trying to see if the photo made sense as a portrait of two couples.  Maybe, maybe not.  Maybe the dark woman resembled Drag a bit?  A sister?

Cal went through the photos a few times, but in the end he had to admit that he couldn’t spot any women who seemed to be _with_ Bos or Drag in particular.

After a while, he put everything back in the envelope, put the envelope back where he’d found it, finished unpacking and went to find out when supper was and whether or not he was supposed to help cook it.

***

The garden was Cal’s idea.

Before they moved to the summer house, the doctor had suggested that spending more time outdoors in the fresh air and sunlight would be good not only for little Javor but for all the carriers as well.  “They’re young, they should be active.”

The space to the south of the house caught Cal’s eye almost the moment they arrived, and the doctor’s advice gave him a chance to put his request forward.  He and Tiger and Ami would be outdoors, but still safe inside the walls.  The project would be both healthy and useful – they could grow fresh vegetables and herbs for the kitchen.

Tiger agreed to back him on the understanding that there would be no potatoes, which was fine with Cal because picking bugs off potato plants was a pain in the ass anyway.

Somewhat to Calvin’s surprise, he didn’t have to argue too hard.  Miljan nodded and looked at Bos.  Bos said to make a list, so Calvin tried to think of everything they’d need – tools, manure for fertilizer, seeds.  Bedding plants.  Some plants could be grown from seed, others it would be better to buy already started as bedding plants.

He wondered if next year he could build a greenhouse at the winter house and start their own bedding plants to bring with them to the summer house.  Then he reminded himself that if he wanted permission to do that, he’d better make _this_ year’s garden a success first and had he remembered to write down dill seed?  Did they need lime or was the soil sweet enough already?

The list turned out to be rather long, but Bos took it and went away and came back with everything Cal had requested, plus one book on soil chemistry and another on insect pests.  Cal was so surprised that he hugged Bos in front of everyone and then turned pink when he realized what he’d done, which meant that Tiger got to laugh at _him_ for a change.

All the men of the house turned out to break up the ground and turn it over.  Cal wasn’t sure if Miljan had ordered them to or if they’d volunteered.  The day was sunny, unseasonably hot, and pretty soon everyone except the carriers had pulled their shirts off.  Miljan said no when Tiger asked.  Cal was just as glad _not_ to display his stomach, and Ami was shy of his swollen breasts.

It was interesting, though, watching the men.  Cal found himself studying the play of muscle in Bos’ back, a part of Bos he rarely got to see in bed.  Then he glanced at Tiger and Ami and wondered if his own face wore the same intent, appreciative look they were giving _their_ husbands.

One of the guards looked up, noticed the carriers watching and said something in Serbian to the others, who all started laughing.  Neither Bos nor Drag seemed upset, and Miljan outright grinned and waved at Tiger.  When the men started digging again, they dug a bit faster, a bit deeper.

“Show offs,” muttered Tiger, but he was smiling.

When the ground was ready, Cal and Tiger planted and planted and carried water and _planted_.  “How many different kinds of seeds did you ask for, anyway?” grumbled Tiger.

Drag rigged a sort of hanging cradle for Javor and once the infant had dropped off to sleep, Ami would help with the planting, although not with carrying water.  Most of the work fell to Cal and Tiger, but it was nice to be outdoors, working out in the sun.  It was fun kind of in the same way that last winter’s snowball fights had been fun.  They could have _fun_ working on this garden because whether it succeeded or failed, they knew the household would still have plenty of food on the table.

Ami turned a more golden shade of cream in the sun.  Tiger just got browner.  Cal did what he always did in the summer: he freckled.  He swore he had more freckles than they had seeds, freckles even where his shirt covered, the sun going right through the thin summer material.

Bos laughed and kissed his freckles in bed at night.

***

After the planting, of course, came weeding, watering, thinning, watering, more weeding, more watering...

“Who knew food was this much work?” Tiger asked no one in particular.

“Officer’s son,” jibed Cal.

“Farm boy,” Tiger shot back.

“Cut it out, you’re setting a bad example for Javor.”

“Da, keva!” Cal and Tiger chorused.  Ami fussed so much over Javor they’d taken to calling him “Mom.”

Ami smiled sweetly.  “I’m looking forward to teasing you two when you have children of your own.  Your husbands won’t keep giving you those shots forever.”

Right, like Calvin needed _another_ reminder on that topic.

“Cal?” Ami sounded concerned.  “I was kidding, you know that, right?”

“Cal?  Didn’t Bos...”

“Yeah, Tiger, he did, last night.  But he said pretty much the same thing Ami just said, that he wouldn’t keep doing this forever.”

They weeded in silence for awhile, until Tiger accidentally pulled out a tiny carrot and swore.  “Can I just stick it back in the ground?”

“It’ll probably die,” said Cal, “But try it.”

He watched Tiger awkwardly replant the carrot.  “Look, it’s okay.  I already knew kids were part of the deal.  I never thought Bos would wait even this long, so I’ve been lucky, and, well, _someone_ has to have children...”

“And we’re it?” asked Ami dryly.

“Yeah.  We’re it.”  Cal thought of the women in the photos.  They were dead now, dead a decade or more.

“My mother,” Tiger began, uncharacteristically hesitant.  “She was...  Miljan mentioned once about when he was younger, about – you know – being with other boys.  I think he _said_ it was other boys.  Except – what if I’m remembering wrong?”

“You mean, what if it were girls?” asked Ami gently.

“Yeah.”  Tiger brooded a moment.  Cal kept weeding.  If Ami had any bright ideas on what to say to Tiger, Cal wanted to hear them for his own sake.

“But even if it _were_ girls,” said Tiger, suddenly fierce, “They’re not here and I _am_.”

Cal blinked.  “Tiger, I think you just answered the question yourself.  Hvala.”

***

Summer brought no respite from missions – if anything, they increased in frequency.  Cal was used to Bos leaving and returning at all hours, often coming back covered in sweat, mud, blood or some mixture of all three.

None of this prepared him for the hot July night when Bos stumbled into their bedroom reeking of sweat and...  Was that _whiskey_?

Cal jumped out of bed and grabbed Bos as he stumbled around the room in the dark, apparently trying to find the lamp but succeeding only in knocking things over.

“Okay, okay, I’ve got you, come on, sit down.”  He tried to get Bos to sit down on the bed, but it was like trying to budge a large boulder.  Bos was _big_.  At least he wasn’t flailing around all over the room anymore.

Bos was talking, speaking Serbian.  Something about _mrtav_ and _brat_ and, over and over, _nebojsa_.  One of the other guards was called Neb and Cal thought Bos might be talking about him, but that was all he could make of it.  They’d sort it out in the morning.

In the meantime, the best place for Bos was obviously bed.  Cal started trying to unbutton his shirt in the dark.  He was startled to discover that Bos had gotten drunk while still in uniform.  Cal touched wet patches and when he brought his fingers to his face, he smelled blood.

“Bos, are you hurt?”

But he couldn’t understand Bos’ answer.  He flipped the lamp on.  Bos growled at the sudden brightness, tried to swat at the lamp and almost fell over.  He was too heavy for Cal to catch, but at least Cal managed to direct his fall so that Bos landed on the bed instead.  Cal dragged Bos’ shirt off and felt around for wounds but found only scrapes and shallow gashes, no serious wounds.  He was pretty sure there was more blood on Bos’ uniform than could have come from Bos himself.

Bos was looking up at him now.  He was still speaking Serbian but his tone had changed, his voice going lower and darker.

“Bos, I can’t understand you.  Can you speak English?”

Bos kept talking, almost growling, pulling Cal’s hands back to him, pulling them along his body as if he wanted Cal to continue touching his skin.  Which – okay, fine, sometimes animals calmed down if you stroked them.  So Cal stroked his husband, feeling the muscles tense and relax again under his hands, seeing how small those hands looked against the bulk of Bos’ body.

“Come on, Bos,” he urged softly, “Come on, speak English to me, tell me what’s going on.”

He thought it might be working.  Bos seemed to be calming a bit.  He started to touch Cal back, to stroke Cal’s hair and his bare arms.  Bos’ breath was hot and whiskey-scented against Cal’s  face.  His voice rumbled in a stream of Serbian from which English words leapt like bright fish.

“Da, yes.  Cal, my Calvin, dušo moja, you are right.”

“I’m right about what?  Hey!”  Cal yelped as Bos suddenly flipped them over so that Cal was underneath him.  This close, the reek of sweat and whiskey emanating from Bos was almost overpowering.  Cal was suddenly very aware of his own naked vulnerability.

“Where there is death, there must be life.  We will make life tonight.  This is right.”

“That’s _not_ what I meant!  Bos, you’re drunk!  You need to sleep it off!  Bos!”

Bos didn’t seem to hear.  He kept Cal pinned, touched him more roughly, now pawing at him rather than stroking.  He lowered his heavy, sweaty body onto Cal’s, groin to groin, and began to rub and thrust.  It wasn’t pleasant, but for a moment Cal thought he might be spared the worst, if only because Bos was too drunk to get his own trousers undone.

Then Bos levered himself up so that he was sitting on Cal’s stomach, his booted feet to either side.

“Bos, you’re crushing me!  Get _off_!”  Cal twisted and bucked as hard as he could, but Bos wasn’t moving.  He muttered something about patience as he worked at his trousers, managing the belt reasonably well but having trouble with the zipper.  Finally he simply ripped the trousers open, the sound of tearing cloth sudden and violent.  More mending, thought Cal, and clamped his jaw down on a hysterical giggle.

Bos yanked the trousers down around his thighs along with his briefs.  He was only half-hard.  He still had his boots on as he lowered himself back on top of Cal.

“Bos!  No!  Stop!” Cal yelled.

Bos wasn’t listening, and no one else came.  Cal wasn’t even sure he wanted anyone to come.  He remembered Miljan shooting his brother.  Cal didn’t want Bos shot, he only wanted him to _stop_.

But Bos didn’t stop.  He poked and prodded at Cal’s opening, growing frustrated as his drunkenness interfered with both his erection and his ability to aim.  He finally managed to thrust into Cal more or less by accident, although his triumphant yell suggested he thought he’d done something fine.

It’s not rape, Cal thought.  No one would call it rape.  I’m his wife, it’s my duty, it’s not rape.

It didn’t even hurt as much as the first night of their marriage.  But everything that had made that night tolerable – Bos’ care and affection, his attempts to give Cal pleasure, his willingness to listen – all of that was missing.  Instead Cal was left with the smell of sweat and whiskey, the stifling weight of Bos above him, the rough pain of Bos thrusting over and over into Cal’s dry passage.

Bos was having trouble reaching orgasm.  He grabbed Cal’s arms in a bruising grip, shook him as if the problem were Cal’s fault and not the whiskey’s.  But finally – _finally_ – Bos froze and Cal felt a spurt of hot wetness inside of himself.  Bos sighed and collapsed onto Cal.

After a moment, he began to snore.

Well, that’s over with, thought Cal bleakly.  He managed to wriggle forward a bit so that Bos’ soft cock slipped out.  Then he rolled sideways to get out from underneath Bos.  He flipped the sheet over his husband and turned off the lamp, but grabbed the blanket to make himself a nest on the floor.  His stomach clenched at the idea of getting back into their bed.  Besides, Bos wouldn’t notice anyway.

***

Cal didn’t sleep well, but he made himself stay in the room until he heard others start to move about the house.  Then he pulled on some clothes and went down to the kitchen for a glass and a pitcher of water.  He was looking in the cupboard where they kept first aid supplies for the bottle of painkiller tablets when Drag came in, looking bleary and red-eyed.

“Calvin, dobar dan.  How is Bos?”

Bos is just fine, Cal thought.  He’s sleeping it off after raping me last night.

“He’s still asleep, Drag.”

“Are you taking some of those up for him?  Yes?  You are a good wife, Cal.”

Cal felt like throwing the pitcher in Drag’s face.  Maybe his own face showed that, because Drag added, “Cal, yesterday’s mission – Nebojsa, Neb, he was killed.  This is hard for all of us, but Neb was Bos’ cousin.”

“I thought you were all cousins.”  Cal tried not to sound snappish, knew he didn’t entirely succeed.

“Yes, but Neb and Bos were...  I don’t know how to say it.  Braća, brothers, but from aunts.  Their mothers were sisters.”

“First cousins.”

“First cousins, yes.”

Cal remembered the picnic photos, Bos with his arm around another man’s shoulders.  Neb.

“On the way home, we stopped and bought some whiskey, to drink in Neb’s honour.  We were all a little drunk, but Bos, he was a lot drunk.  When we reached home, we tried to get Bos to sleep downstairs or with one of the other men, but he would not do it.  He said he would sleep in his own bed, with his own wife.  We saw that this was important to him.  We thought maybe it would help his sorrow.”

“Well, Bos is certainly sleeping in his own bed.  His wife isn’t there at the moment, his wife is downstairs getting water and painkillers.”

Drag regarded Cal a moment, then shrugged, turning away to put the tea kettle on.

Cal went back upstairs.  Bos was still snoring.  Cal put the pitcher, the glass and the tablets on the bedside table.  He made sure the curtains were completely drawn, so that the room would remain dim even when the sun circled further south.  Then he slipped out again, shutting the door behind him, and went outdoors to the garden.

A garden always needs weeding.  If tears ran down Cal’s face as he worked, this was no one’s business but his own.

***

By the time Tiger showed up, Cal had run out of weeds and was simply watching the plants grow.  Tiger brought a tray – apple pastries, a chunk of hard, sharp cheese, a cool pitcher of rosehip tea and a couple of glasses.  Also a damp cloth, a comb and a piece of string for Cal to tie his hair back.

“You missed breakfast.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m about to waste away.”

“Maybe not, but you should eat breakfast anyway.”

They were silent for a while.  Cal alternated bites of sweet pastry with bites of cheese, while Tiger turned a glass of tea around and around in his hands.

“Cal, when Miljan shot his brother...  His brother was _crazy_.  He was going to _kill_ the carrier he’d brought home, and there’s no way to fix dead and there’s no way to fix crazy.  So Miljan shot him.  But... drunk’s not crazy, you know?”

“And rape’s not murder,” said Cal dryly, “And for a man to fuck his wife isn’t even rape.  Got it.”  His voice sounded angrier than he meant it to be.  This wasn’t Tiger’s fault.

“Look, Tiger, I understand there’s nothing you could have done.  But _Miljan_ could have done something and he didn’t and I don’t have to sit here and listen to you making excuses for him.  I understand why he didn’t...”

“No, you don’t.”

“Sure I do.  It’s this whole line of crap about how no one in this house interferes between a man and his wife...”

“ _You’re_ in this house, don’t you get that?  It’s Miljan’s house and you’re in it and Bos is in it and Miljan has to figure out what at least _works_ for the household and everyone in it even if it’s not’s _perfect_ for anyone.  You think it was perfect for Miljan that he had to shoot his own brother?”

“What’s that got to do with...”

“Because it wasn’t!  But it was what Miljan needed to do for the household, so he did it!”

“And Miljan didn’t ‘need to’ stop Bos last night, so he didn’t.”

“Because Bos hurt you but he was never going to kill you.  And Bos was drunk last night but he almost never gets drunk and he cares about you, Cal, how do you think he feels this morning?”

“Pretty crappy, I’d guess.  It’s called a hangover, Tiger.”

“That’s not...”

“What you meant?  But it’s what _I_ mean, and you can tell Miljan that when you report back to him.”

“I’m not,” said Tiger sullenly.  “Reporting back to Miljan.  I – we all – heard what happened last night.  I wanted Miljan to do something and I was angry he wouldn’t and he explained some stuff to me.”

“Knowing that you’d pass it on to me.”

“I wouldn’t if it didn’t make sense.”

Cal flicked pastry crumbs at a curious finch and didn’t dignify Tiger’s statement with a response.

“Cal... are you leaving?”  Tiger’s voice sounded small and very young.

Cal shrugged.  He’d figured out the answer to this one hours ago.  “Probably not.  Where would I go?”

***

Cal stayed outside for a while after Tiger took the tray back in, but eventually he had to go in too.  There were, after all, chores to be done.  He wasn’t so sore as to excuse him from that.  When Ami mentioned that the doctor would be coming up tomorrow to check up on Javor and gave Cal a significant look, Cal shrugged.  “I’m fine.”

He didn’t see much of Bos.  When Bos did appear, he didn’t try to speak to Cal or approach him.

By the time night came, Cal had realized he probably wouldn’t be allowed to sleep downstairs or any place else except in the room he’d been sharing with Bos.  Once he realized that, he figured there was no point in drawing things out, so he marched himself upstairs, stripped down to his underwear and got into bed – the very farthest side of the bed.  He left the light on.  He wasn’t going to be able to sleep until he got this over with anyway.

Bos came in later, looking tired and somehow older than usual.  He sat down on the bed, studying Cal.

“Do you remember, Calvin, when I told you we all have our duties?”

“Yes.  ’It is a wife’s duty to spread his legs for his husband.’  I know that.  I’ll do that.  It’s not my duty to have to like it.”

Bos’ face darkened, and Cal braced himself.  But then Bos shook his head.  “No.  That is not what I meant.”

And now you’re going to tell me what you meant, thought Cal.  Because that was Bos.  Everything was “right now” with him.  If Bos thought they needed to talk, they would talk right now.  If Cal didn’t understand, Bos would explain things to him.  Right now.

Bos stood up and undressed, tossing his clothes to the floor.  Then he got into bed on the other side from Cal and turned out the light.

Cal lay awake a long time without sleeping.  Judging from Bos’ breathing, he did as well.  But they didn’t speak to each other, and Bos was already gone when Cal woke in the morning.

***

They went on like that for awhile.  No one else said anything.  Cal figured this was the upside of the whole no-interference-between-a-man-and-his-wife thing.  Maybe the _only_ upside.

One hot afternoon, Cal was out at the garden, weeding again.  He didn’t know where Tiger and Ami had gotten to.  When Bos showed up, Cal wondered if he’d been left alone on purpose.

Bos stood there, watching.  Cal kept weeding, but his shoulder blades itched.  Sweat beaded on his face, got caught in his hair.  He wished he could untie his hair, shake it out, finger comb it and re-tie it.

He kept weeding instead.

“Your garden grows well.”

“It’s not ‘my’ garden.  Tiger and Ami work here, too.”

“But you are the one who knows what to do.  Those yellow vegetables, we had some at dinner last evening.”

“Summer squash.”

“Yes.  And how do you call those?”

Bos had never shown any interest in the garden before, but he asked about every plant growing.  What part of this one was eaten?  Why had Cal tied _these_ vines up on poles but allowed _those_ to run along the ground?

He and Bos rarely talked, Cal realized, not even when Bos was home.  Bos couldn’t say much about missions, of course, but Cal could have asked him _something_.  Maybe about books, about history?  Now here they were, talking about vegetables.

Cal wasn’t all surprised when Bos said, “We need to finish our talk.”  The only surprising thing was that Bos had waited this long.

“You know _your_ duties, Calvin.”

Cal nodded, not sure where Bos was going with this.

“What are mine?”

“Sorry?”

“I have told you what my duties are as your husband.  Do you remember?”

Okay, this was different.  “Ah, to protect the household?  And me.”  Because I’m part of the household, he thought.

“Those are some of them,” Bos said gravely.

“To keep us safe.”

“To keep _you_ safe, Calvin, and to care for you.  To try and make you happy.”

Cal poked at the ground, not knowing what to say.

“So, little wife, have I performed my duties well?”

Cal poked harder.

“Calvin, look at me.  Have I performed my duties well?”

Bos wasn’t going to let this go.  Cal took a deep breath.  “I trusted you.  You _taught_ me to trust you.”

“And then I hurt you.”

“My body, a little bit.  But the trust, a lot.”

“Too much to fix?”

Cal thought about it.  “I don’t know, Bos, I don’t know.  I’ve never done any of this before, not being married or...“ – being raped – “being hurt that way or anything like this.”

“Okay.  Too much to _try_ fixing?”

Cal wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry.  “You never let go, do you?”

“Not when I have something good to hold on to.  Having you for my wife is very good to me, Calvin.”

“Can we try _slowly_?”

“We can try trying slowly.”

Cal figured that was as much as he was going to get.  When he replied, “Okay,” Bos smiled.

***

Perhaps a week or so later, Bos announced that he was going into town and asked Cal if they needed anything for the garden.  They didn’t, and Cal didn’t think of it again until he went upstairs that evening to get ready for bed.

Laid out on the bed was a shirt, deep violet-blue, and on top of the shirt, a hair clasp shaped like a dragon-fly, with blue stones for eyes.

Cal picked up the hair clasp, turning it this way and that in the light.  Months ago – it seemed like longer – Tiger and Ami had given him a natori as a welcoming gift.  They’d meant well, but he’d hated it.  Clever Calvin, it had taunted him, not clever enough to avoid the carrier trap.

Later, when Grandfather had said he’d needed new clothes, Bos had brought him clothes for everyday wear, comfortable and sturdy.

Cal reached out, fingered the material of the shirt.  Finely-woven material, soft against his hands.  Not a shirt for everyday.  If the natori had taunted him, what was this shirt trying to say?

When Bos came upstairs, Cal thanked him.  Then he wondered if Bos had been expecting a more demonstrative reaction, but Bos seemed pleased enough.  They’d resumed marital relations, but it was like the first days of their marriage – Cal couldn’t help flinching whenever Bos touched him, although each time he immediately forced himself to relax again.

The next day he showed the gifts to Ami and Tiger.

“You should wear them to dinner,” suggested Ami, “Bos will want to see them on you.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to be the only one dressed up.”

So all three carriers arrived at the dinner table dressed in their finest.  Ami wore a deep red natori, showing off his recently regained waistline.  Tiger flaunted a necklace of polished stones striped gold and brown with a silky lustre.

Miljan seemed bemused but appreciative.  “There is an occasion?”

Tiger and Ami looked at Cal, who looked down at his plate, trying to come up with something to say.

“Vegetables,” said Bos.  “We are celebrating the harvest of vegetables.”

***

Late August brought rain and wind as storms from the south drifted northwards.  Cal woke in the middle of one night to the sound of Bos cursing his bootlaces.

“Bos?  What’s with the laces?”

A break in the cursing.  Then: “Sorry.  I did not mean to wake you.”

Calvin rolled out of bed and followed Bos’ voice in the sultry dark.  “You’re soaking wet!”

“Da, it is raining.”

“Again.  Come on, sit down and let me get your boots...”

“The bed will get wet.”

“So sit on the bench – no, wait.”  Cal hastily felt up and down the bench surface.  “Okay, it’s clear.  Sit down.”

He worked at the water-swollen laces until he could loosen them and get Bos’ boots off, then started on the buttons of Bos’ shirt.  Sense memory took him unawares, carried him back to another night when he’d stood just as close to this big man, unbuttoning the man’s shirt in the dark.

Cal froze, unable to breathe.

“Cal?”

To breathe or to speak.  And who would listen?

“Calvin?”

Large hands grabbed his arms, held on too tightly.  Cal _screamed_ and brought his knee up, hard, heard his attacker grunt.  He yanked one arm free and struck out into the dark, trying for the guy’s nose but hitting his chin instead, damn, this guy was _tall_.  Tall and strong and Cal couldn’t get his other arm free, couldn’t run, and the guy grabbed Cal’s free arm, wrapped both his own arms around Cal, hugged him so hard Cal figured the guy must be trying to break his ribs.  

He kicked and yelled, heard voices outside the room, kept yelling.

“Calvin, dušo moja, srce moje...”

The words were familiar but he didn’t understand.  

“Tiger, no!” roared one of the voices outside, but another, higher and lighter, yelled, “If you don’t, I will!”

The door burst open, light spilled into the room.  Cal squinted, temporarily blind, and then his vision returned.

Miljan and Drag, both still in uniform.  Tiger.  And, still holding Cal tightly, Bos.

Miljan said something to Bos in Serbian, fast and low.  Bos’ reply made Tiger look surprised and Miljan, thoughtful.  Then Bos released Cal, stood back a little from him.

For a moment, everyone was very, very still.

It was, of course, Tiger who broke the silence.  “Cal, are you okay?  Do you want to come with us?”

Cal opened his mouth, and the word that came out was, “No.”

The moment he said it, he was sure of it.  No, he didn’t want to go anywhere else.  He wanted to stay here, with Bos.

“I remembered and I was scared.  I didn’t know who Bos was, so I tried to fight him.”

“Fortunately I think we will still be able to have children,” Bos said drily.

Cal turned to face Bos.  His skin was wet from Bos’ uniform – oh, _hell_.  He was naked in front of the whole damn household.  He felt his face heat, but he had something he needed to say.

“I didn’t know it was you.  I didn’t know you were my husband.  I think maybe, because, that night, you.”  The words skittered away from him, he couldn’t grab hold of the ones he wanted.

“That night, I did not act towards you as a good husband,” said Bos firmly.  “But now, this is a different night.  Where do you want to sleep?”

“In our bed.  But,” Cal wrinkled his nose, “You have to take your wet clothes off first.”

“Some other people ought to do that too,” said Tiger.  “Ouch!  Mil!”

Bos shut the door in their faces.

***

Bos was notably pleased with the world the next day.

Miljan, not so much.  He looked drawn and a bit pale.  By the end of the day, he’d admitted to having a headache.  Tiger checked and immediately added fever to the list of symptoms.

The doctor who came the next day – and whom nobody would admit to having called – noted the presence of fever, muscle pain, headache, a sore throat and what he called “gastrointestinal distress.”  Enterovirus, was his diagnosis.  Probably nothing serious, but since the War, one never really knew, did one?  Nothing to do be done except wait it out, unfortunately.  Rest, plenty of fluids, stay away from other household members to avoid contagion.

Tiger was unimpressed by the doctor’s treatment advice and unhappy when Miljan banned him from their room.

By the evening of the fourth day, when Miljan failed to appear for dinner, Tiger had decided that what his husband needed was soup.  This was how Cal found himself in the kitchen, peeling and chopping vegetables.  Tiger was over by the stove, poking, stirring and tasting while he muttered to himself about idiot military who didn’t know when to come in out of the rain.  Ami and Javor were helping by providing sympathetic comments and incomprehensible babble, respectively.

Tiger kept coming up with more ideas for what could be added to the soup.  They ended up with a very large pot of excellent soup and a very extensive mess in the kitchen.  Tiger was obviously much more focused on delivering the soup to Miljan than on cleaning up.

“But you’re not supposed to go into the room,” Ami pointed out.

“I’m just leaving the soup,” retorted Tiger.  “I’ll just open the door and...”

“Put the bowl of soup down on the floor?” asked Cal sceptically.

“I’m not leaving it on the floor!  What if Miljan’s asleep and doesn’t come get it right away and then the next person steps in it?  And anyway, Mil’s supposed to be resting.  He shouldn’t have to get out of bed to get the soup.  I can leave it on the table next to the bed.”

“That’s pretty close,” teased Ami.

“I’m just leaving it!” insisted Tiger, ladling soup into a bowl.  “I’ll be right back.” He set the bowl and a spoon on a tray and carried them out.

“So, Cal, what’s your guess?  Will he end up _on_ the bed with Miljan – or _in_ the bed?”

“On while Miljan’s eating the soup and in afterwards.  Uh, do you smell what I smell?”

“If you mean Javor’s diaper, then yes.  I’ve got to go take care of it, but I’ll come back and help you, I promise.”

Yeah, sure, thought Cal good-naturedly as he watched Ami leave with his son.  If Ami came back at all, it would be just as Cal was finishing up with the cleaning.  Ami had a knack for that sort of timing.

He pitched in on the piles of pots, pans and vegetable peelings with a will, humming bits and pieces of tunes to himself for company.  He was almost done when:

“Cal?  It smells very good in here.”

Bos.

“Yeah, Tiger made soup.”

“All by himself?”

“Ami and I helped.  I peeled and chopped a lot of vegetables.  But Tiger’s the one who knows how to cook.”

“And you are the one who knows how to grow vegetables.”

Cal, already flushed from the heat of the kitchen, went redder.  It had occurred to him only recently that Bos was almost never critical of him.  To hear Bos tell it, Cal was clever, beautiful and possessed of a thumb so green it was positively fluorescent.

Bos had missed dinner too, he thought, and was looking tired.

“Did you have a mission?” Cal asked.  “And do you want some soup?  There’s plenty.”

“Da, hvala.  And not a mission, really, but many errands.”

Cal ladled out soup for Bos, got out what was left of the loaf of bread from supper and cut off several slices, found the butter.  He sat and watched as Bos ate hungrily, finishing one bowl quickly, taking more time with the second.

“Can you tell me about at least some of the errands?”

Bos could and did, although he shook his head when Cal’s questions were sometimes too perceptive.  They were still getting the hang of talking to each other, although they were getting better at it.

When Bos was done eating, Cal finishing washing up.  He turned away from the sink to find Bos watching him.

“You are wearing the dragonfly,” observed Bos.

“Yeah.  I – I don’t know, I just felt like wearing it?  Is that okay?”

Bos seemed pleased.  “Da.  It’s okay.  But come here now.”

Bos made Cal sit with his back towards Bos.  He felt Bos unclasping the dragonfly, tugging it free and pressing it into Cal’s hand to hold.  Then Bos unwove Cal’s short braid and began to finger comb his hair, combing over and over until the long red strands were free of tangles.

“We should go upstairs,” said Bos.

The lamp light ran across their bed and touched the spines of their books, mingled together on the shelves.

“Read to me?” asked Cal.  Bos looked surprised – it had been a while since they’d done this – but considered the shelves, selected a volume of Neruda.  He sat on the bed, Cal settling at his side.  Then:

“Bos, wait a moment.”

Bos waited, watching him.

“Have you ever, ah, were there other people you used to read to?  Before me?”

“I read to my brothers and sisters and cousins when they were small.  But I think that it not what you meant.”

Now Cal waited.

“When I was a young man, I met a young woman.  Very intelligent, studying to be a teacher.  She had hair the colour of honey, and her laughter was sweet like honey.”

Cal’s stomach felt strange.  He reminded himself that he’d asked to hear this.

“I was just starting in my career.  My family was not poor, but I had little of my own.  Her father told her to wait until I had proved myself.”

“Did she listen to her father?”

Bos smiled a little.  “Da.  Six years.”

Oh.

“I visited her as often as I could.  When I could not visit, we spoke on the phone, we wrote to each other.”

“And when you visited, you read to her.”

“Da.”

Bos didn’t seem to be about to continue.  Cal half wanted to know, half didn’t.  “What – what happened?”

“After six years, her father said yes.  We were married for seven months.”

Cal could do the math.  “The Plague?” he asked gently.

Bos stared at the floor.  “Afterwards, the doctor said she had been pregnant.”

Bos had waited six years for his wife, only to lose both her and their unborn child.  And the first carriers hadn’t started to appear until seven years after the Plague was first released.  Bos would have thought he’d never have a wife or a child again.

And now – yeah, everything was “right now” with Bos.  But Bos gave Cal his contraceptive shots every three months, waiting until Cal should be ready to bear a child.

Cal pressed closer and put his arms around Bos.  After a moment, Bos shifted to bury his face in Cal’s hair.  They sat for a while.

“Do you still want that I read to you?” Bos asked finally.

“Did you read these same poems?  When you were a young man?”

“No, I did not discover these until later.  When I was a young man, I read other poems.  Calvin?”  Bos lifted his head and placed his hand under Cal’s chin, gently insisting that Cal look at him.  “You are my wife now, you understand?  You are my _only_ wife now, and I am your only husband.”

“I understand.  And yes, will you read to me?”

 _The line of your back  
separating you  
falls away into paler regions  
then surges  
to the smooth hemispheres  
of an apple,  
and goes splitting  
your loveliness  
into two pillars  
of burnt gold, pure alabaster,  
to be lost in the twin clusters of your feet_

***

Bos kissed his freckles, stroked his hair and his arms, his sides and his stomach.

Cal tried to relax and then at some point realized he didn’t need to try anymore – he _was_ relaxed.  His body had figured out that Bos wasn’t going to hurt him, at least not now.  Maybe not ever again.

Bos nuzzled Cal’s navel, lapped at his stiffening cock, at the entrance of his passage, pausing to murmur endearments.  Love, my heart, my sweetheart.

Cal heard his own voice: “Bos, it’s okay, it’s okay, come on, it’s okay.”

It _was_ okay.  And then it was more, something lit like a brief spark in the darkness and, “Agh!” Cal gasped.

“Ah!” said Bos, and moved that same way again.

He would never be _in love_ with Bos, Cal thought as they lay together afterwards.  He wasn’t even sure he _loved_ Bos, but he was pretty sure he was coming to.

“Bos?”

“Mmm?”

“My next contraceptive shot...”

“Is in two weeks.  I will not forget.”

“Well, that’s it.  If you did... it would be okay?”

Bos sat up and turned on the lamp.

“Calvin, what are you saying?”

Cal took a deep breath.  “I don’t need the shots anymore.”

“You are sure?”

Bos touched his face.  Bos’ eyes looked...  Oh, hell.  What was he supposed to do if Bos started _crying_?

But Bos only blinked and then said gruffly, “We will have the doctor check you.  The doctor will decide if you are ready or not.”

Cal grinned, relieved.  “Sure thing, Bos.”  And then added, “Husband.”

Bos kissed him on the lips and turned off the lamp again.

They spent a few moments getting comfortably resettled.  Cal ended up with his ear against Bos’ chest, so that when Bos spoke again, Cal heard it in his bones.

“Soon we will be returning to the winter house.”

“Da,” murmured Cal.

He fell asleep thinking of all the years to come.

**Author's Note:**

> (1) The views expressed on marital rape in this story are *not* my own. Sadly, however, they are not unknown, even in countries where marital rape is illegal.
> 
> (2) The quotations from Pablo Neruda's poems are taken from _A Memory_ (<http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Spanish/Neruda.htm#_Toc12957979>) and _Ode to a Naked Beauty_ (<http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Spanish/Neruda.htm#_Toc12957950>).


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